


you're the coldest form of warm

by ghvsts



Series: do you feel like a young god [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Kinda, M/M, aimless rambling for a good solid chunk, andrew is hades renee is persephone, dont gotta know mythology to read obviously, kevin/thea is there but it's super background sorry lmao, neil is a hero just tryin to live his life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 11:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghvsts/pseuds/ghvsts
Summary: "there's someone singing," she signs.(in which renee and andrew are spring and death embodied, and neil is orpheus)





	you're the coldest form of warm

**Author's Note:**

> !! this was originally called "the edge of nowhere (such a beautiful place)" and it was up for like. an hour last night before i deleted it so that's irrelevant but this is a n e w version of that Mess that's kinda pretty different and also better i hope. 
> 
> just some key terms:
> 
> \+ Elysium is where the souls of heroes and mortals who did Really Good Stuff in their lives go in the afterlife
> 
> \+ The Fields of Punishment is where the Really Bad souls are sent to be, yknow, punished
> 
> \+ The Fields of Asphodel is for souls who didn't do anything particularly good or bad
> 
> \+ Rhadamanthus, Minos, and Abacus are the three judges who decide where everyone goes
> 
> \+ the river styx is the river the dead cross to enter the underworld
> 
> \+ charon is the ferryman who takes everyone across the styx
> 
> aaand i think that's the main stuff? google is also ur pal if i forgot to explain anything

**ALTERNATIVELY: the edge of nowhere (such a beautiful place)**

 

* * *

 

Andrew runs his kingdom is silence. His palace is ghostly and quiet, just like its inhabitants, and when he walks the halls, his feet are the only things to make noise, his shoes echoing on the smooth black floors. The torches go out as he moves by, flickering back to life once he passes, and even they do not make sound. It is peaceful despite the world of fire that surrounds it. 

 

Andrew spends his days on his throne, watching the souls flow through his gates, some lost, all desperate. He sits back and watches the Judgements without comment, trusting Rhadamanthus, Minos, and Abacus to do their jobs properly. Occasionally, when particularly vile souls pass through his hall he stops the proceedings, steps in to place his own Judgement on the scum before him. It is not often that he interrupts, but when he does he is brutal, signing their punishments in a furious flurry that dooms them to the Fields of Punishment for the rest of eternity. 

 

Andrew spends his days in his palace in silence, his court never louder than a whisper. (Except for when Renee visits.) 

Unlike his boisterous family, it is the way he prefers things.

 

When Renee visits, she stays six months at a time. 

 

_ Hello Andrew, _ she signs, fingers as fluid as his after centuries of practice with each other. 

Just for her, he clears his throat, un-sticks his tongue from the bottom of his mouth. “Hello, Renee,” he says and his voice is raspy and broken from disuse. He only speaks to her.

She smiles when he greets her and conjures a throne, in perfect contrast to his, and takes a seat next to him. 

 

Her throne is pomegranate red. Flowers and vines climb up the back and wrap around the arms. Andrew’s, on the other hand, is black like almost everything else in his realm. It is made of obsidian and smoke, half corporeal, half shimmering invisible. If anyone other than him were to sit in it, they would fall straight through to the floor, and then straight through the floor to the dungeon. (No one has never attempted but it amuses Andrew to imagine it.)

  
  


When Renee visits, plants sprout through the ground, pushing themselves impossibly to the surface. 

 

If Andrew is in a good mood, he lets her grow forget-me-nots around the base of his chair and up it’s legs until it looks as if it too has sprouted from the ground, impossible and beautiful.

 

When she leaves, they wither and die.

 

They are spring and death embodied. 

 

They are spring and death embodied, personified, and so they make an unlikely pair. One the others speculate about, Andrew knows. His family is nosy and overbearing and they love to place bets. Rumours run rampant and wild every winter when Renee joins Andrew in the Underworld, and maybe it doesn’t help that she is the only one permitted to visit him. The one exception to this rule is Kevin, sort of, but even he isn’t really permitted either. Kevin just shows up, delivering messages that Andrew has never once responded to, but Wymack sends anyway, and no amount of death threats and curses seem able to deter the messenger god from his job. 

  
  


When Renee visits, the halls of his palace are filled with her warm laugh. They play checkers and she teaches him new card games she’s seen the humans playing when she spends time on earth. They are comfortable in their friendship and lounge in the garden Renee keeps, where crystals dangle off of tree branches and mushrooms glow pink, purple, and blue. They throw pomegranate seeds for the other to catch in their mouth. 

 

Sometimes Andrew no longer feels like talking, has met his word limit for the day, week, month, so they sit in comfortable silence and sign back and forth instead. Sometimes Renee will read to him, her voice lulling him to sleep. It is another sign of how much he trusts her when he falls asleep next to her. They never speak of it, but Renee knows what it means. She smiles, edges of her mouth curving upwards, and the trees grow a little taller around them.

 

He enjoys her company. (After copious amounts of bribery with chocolate, Andrew will only ever admit this to Bee, once.)

  
  


***

 

Renee bursts into being next to his throne, exploding into the space with a puff of warm air and a whiff of roses and wet earth after a rain. 

 

Andrew lifts his head from where it was resting in his hand, elbow propped up on his armrest, and blinks at her. 

 

_ There’s someone singing, _ she signs. Andrew’s brow furrows minutely. 

He coughs, clears his throat once, twice, speaks. “What?”

Renee smiles, a twinkle in her eye. “There’s someone singing. And playing a lyre, I think.”

Andrew turns away, back to the trial going on. Rhadamanthus, Minos, and Abacus are taking an unusually long time to judge the woman standing before them. 

“Probably just someone in  Elysium,” he says.

“Yes, but Andrew, I was on the edge, by Styx. Nothing from Elysium could be heard all the way over there.”

 

Below them, the Judges have come to a decision, and Andrew leans forward to see Minos’ hands better as he declares the woman’s fate. Mary Wesninski is sent to the Fields of Asphodel. 

Andrew sighs and flops back in his throne. He looks back to Renee. 

_ You can investigate if you wish. I don’t care. But, _ he adds as an afterthought _ , Charon might know something if you ask the right questions. _

Renee smiles, big and bright, the way she only does when she is proud of him, and disappears again. He shakes himself and Andrew’s not quite sure what he’s done to earn that smile, but he likes it when Renee is happy. 

 

***

 

Time passes differently in the Underworld and so it’s either a decade or two days before Renee reappears in the great hall. Andrew is used to this— Renee coming and going from the palace during her visits to explore. She likes to make sure everything is in its place, ensures there is no fraying in the barriers that separate their realm from the one up above. (Maybe it’s because she knows no one else will check, guesses correctly that Andrew is too lazy to do it himself.)

 

_ You need to come with me, _ is what she greets him with, urgent and frowning. 

_ What is it. _

She just shakes her head.  _ Charon is worried. _

Andrew stands reluctantly and cracks his knuckles, stretches his fingers.

With a cold gust of wind, they appear on the edge of the river Styx. 

 

Charon is waiting for them when they arrive. His features are concealed by a thick dark cloak of mist, but Andrew can feel the tension radiating off of him in waves. He acknowledges them with an inclination of his head and withdraws his hands, skeletal and white, from the folds of his cloak. 

_ There are cracks _ , he signs, _ in the rocks. _

 

Andrew’s head snaps to where Charon indicates. He watches as a section of the rock that makes up the edges of their world shakes. Fissures shoot up from the ground, creating a split in the barrier. It reminds Andrew of a spider-web, the way the cracks spread out, thin and spiraling. 

 

_ Do you hear it? _ Renee signs suddenly.  _ The singing. _

 

Andrew tilts his head.

 

He can hear the entire Underworld, like he always can when he is outside of his palace, fire popping and the five rivers flowing and the enteral parties in Elysium and the echoing screams from the Fields of Punishment. He can hear the rock groaning and breaking, can even hear the murmurs of the titans in their prison, Tartarus. He cannot, however, hear singing. (Or a lyre for that matter.)

But Charon is rarely worried, wouldn’t have called him here if it wasn’t an absolute emergency, and even Renee seems disturbed. 

 

So he reaches out a hand, feels his power gather in the pit of his stomach, and makes a fist.

 

The Underworld goes silent, as if put on mute. The Styx stops gurgling. The screams are cut off suddenly. Even Charon’s cloak is quiet, no longer murmuring when it moves. 

 

Andrew exhales, and  _ listens.  _

 

Faintly, he hears it. Through the rocks, through the cracks getting wider and wider with every passing moment, he makes out the sound of singing. And a lyre. 

 

The words aren’t distinct, Andrew thinks that maybe there aren’t any. It is beautiful though, and for a moment, Andrew stands, transfixed, mesmerized, by the music. 

 

Then he notices the singer getting louder. He shakes his head, hard, and forces himself to focus on anything other than the music. He turns to Renee and Charon and they look as unsettled as he feels. He turns back to the rock. It splits farther and farther apart at the music gets louder— closer. 

 

The rock shudders, and it’s still silent, but the riverbank rolls under their feet from the force of it. Andrew is so surprised, he loses his grip on his power. The sounds of the Underworld come rushing back in as the fissure becomes wide enough for a small person to get through. 

 

There’s a bright light and the music is so loud it feels like the singer is right next to him, playing right into his ear, and the barrier breaks just long enough for a figure to step through.

 

Andrew sees the figure, makes out the shape of a lyre, and doesn’t think. He conjures the first thing his mind goes to, a long bone appearing in his hand, and he swings it at the figure.

 

The musician lets out a startled gasp and crumples. 

 

***

 

_ He is mortal, _ Renee manages.  _ Andrew, he is  _ living _. _

Andrew grips his bone tightly and bends down to inspect the man. He has a bright auburn curls that tumble down over his forehead and a splash of freckles across his nose. Andrew’s stomach swoops. 

 

_ Charon _ , he orders as he stands, forcing himself to look away from the man before them,  _ repair the border. Get the Furies to help you. I want it to be a hundred times stronger than it was. This is not to happen again. _

 

_ Yes, my lord.  _ Charon vanishes, the smell of rotting wood and smoke lingering after him.

 

It is then that mortal’s eyes snap open. Andrew has time to register they are a piercing blue before the man scrambles backwards, away. “What the fuck,” Andrew thinks he hears him wheeze.

 

Renee acts first, slicing a hand through the air, and vines burst from the black sand and wrap around his arms, effectively stopping him from crab-walking any farther. She glares at the mortal fiercely.  _ What should we do with him? _ And then, because Renee can be cruel and she wants to intimidate this man, has been intimidated herself and hates it, says out loud, “he clearly wants to be here very badly. Perhaps we should kill him and throw him into the Fields of Punishment. Make his wishes come true.”

 

Andrew is inclined to go along with Renee’s suggestion, wants to make this man suffer because  _ no one _ breaks into his realm and gets away with it, but first he wants to know how he did it.

 

Because if this man can get in, destroy all their defences and make it through, then he needs to make sure nobody else can. Make absolutely sure he wasn’t followed, won’t be letting anyone or anything in.  The Underworld is Andrew’s world and Andrew’s alone. He does not like intruders.

 

“How did you get through.”

It is not a question. Andrew does not ask questions. He demands answers, and he will get them, or by the gods he swears he will destroy this man. Will make sure not even his soul is intact when he is finished. There will not be enough of him left to enter the Underworld a second time. 

 

The mortal hesitates. Andrew notices the injuries he is covered with, tells himself he does not care where he got them. 

 

The mortal’s gaze snaps towards his lyre, lying a few yards away where he cannot reach it in his restraints, but does not answer. 

Renee hisses from behind Andrew and her vines tighten. Hiss fingers turn purple as his circulation is cut off. The mortal presses his mouth into a thin line but still, he does not answer.

 

“I’ll give you one more chance. How did you get through.”

His gaze goes back to the lyre and finally, finally, Andrew makes the connection. He has heard rumours of a musician and a powerful instrument, how when the man plays, everything stops to listen. Andrew rarely pays attention to the gossip of the gods, but even he was heard of the way his singing, supposedly, can convince even diamonds to break for him under his spell. 

“Do you know who I am.”

The musician’s eyes dart back and forth between them. Renee, dress pink and decorated, her skin tinted green with chlorophyll and black eyes cold, and Andrew, robes darker than the night and a grey aura surrounding him, brown eyes flashing. 

 

They are spring and death embodied and they are  _ terrifying.  _

 

Andrew flexes his power, sending out a wave of cold over the mortal, who shudders and swallows, gathering his courage to speak for the first time.. 

 

“You’re the lord of the dead. You have my mother.”

 

***

 

Andrew takes them back to the palace. With just a thought, Andrew constructs a tiny cell to toss their intruder in. He slams the door shut on the human and calls for his Judges. He is so angry he screams, his voice breaking. 

Minos appears next to him.  _ My lord.  _

“A soul came through here.”

_ Many souls have come through your great halls, my lord, _ Minos signs.

“Mary Wesninski. I want her brought to me immediately.”

_ Yes, my lord.  _

 

Renee reaches out, slowly. “Andrew, may I touch your arm?”

He nods stiffly and Renee squeezes his forearm gently. “What are you going to do to him?”

Andrew shrugs, ignores the ice forming in his chest and shakes Renee off. “I am going to kill him.”

 

She nods. He opens the door to cell and sweeps inside. 

 

The door closes behind him, and Andrew won’t admit it, but maybe he flicks his fingers so that maybe the door closes a bit more softly than it would have, plunging the small chamber into darkness. In the corner, the lyre glows faintly. Interesting. 

 

Andrew snaps his fingers and a green ball of fire grows in his hand, shining on the musician’s  pale face. 

 

Andrew sneers. 

“What do you want here?”

(And maybe the musician is starting to get a little bit impatient, a little bit more desperate.)

“I told you! My mother! Her name is Mary, please—”

“I do not like that word. Do not use it.”

“My father killed my mother before her time. I’m here to take her home.”

“To the land of the living.”

“Yes.”

Andrew cocks his head. “Why should I allow this? She has already passed through to Asphodel.”

“Pl— I can make you an offering. I am a very talented musician. I am willing to trade you my lyre for my mother’s soul,” he says carefully. 

Andrew scoffs. “I do not want your lyre. I want nothing, especially nothing of yours.”

Andrew cannot decide if this mortal is going to be a real problem yet.“Who do you work for.” 

“No one. My mother and I have been on the run for many years, from my father. She is all I have.”

 

Andrew, alone in the Underworld six months a year out of twelve, has a reputation for being cruel and unforgiving. No one has ever noticed that he is only cruel to those that deserve it, to those that threaten (threatened) the safety of his family, his home, or others. This mortal is not a threat to any of the above, he decides, and the ice in Andrew’s chest begins to melt. A problem, maybe, but not a threat.

 

The man looks up, daring to meet the god of death’s eyes for the first time.

Andrew’s stomach swoops. He hesitates. 

(It is possible that the god of death has grown too soft in the last couple  millenia.)

 

“I will trade you,” Andrew says finally, “a truth for your mother. I will allow you take her soul and lead her back to earth, but on one condition. When you lead her to the surface, you must not look back at her until you are among the living again. If you do, she will return to Asphodel, and I will kill you.”

 

“I understand.”

 

“What is your name?”

 

His  eyes widen. He shrinks back, looks down at his feet, at the vines still wrapped around his arms. For a moment, Andrew thinks he will back down. But he doesn’t. Instead he says, “My name is Neil.” Andrew tuts and Neil sighs. “But if you want to call me something true, call me Abram. It’s my middle name. My mother used it when we were alone.”

 

Andrew accepts it.

 

***

 

Neil climbs the steep slope slowly. Behind him, barely audible over his singing and playing, is the sound of his mother’s footsteps.

 

As he plucks his lyre, the ground shakes. The slope becomes steeper. In the distance, he sees a light. 

 

He climbs until his feet as sore and his fingers bleed from playing and he trips when the ground moves under him but it gets lighter and lighter until he stands on the edge. 

 

He stops and teeters between the worlds of the living and dead. He smells fresh bread and hears people talking, merchants calling out at passersby. Neil wipes his brow and hesitates. His fingers slow until they barely move the strings. He frowns.

 

Neil is tired. Tired of running and tired of the pain and just  _ tired _ . He is exhausted and hurting and he wonders if maybe he’d be allowed to hang out in the Underworld. Maybe wandering Asphodel wouldn’t be the worst thing. The thing is, though, Neil doesn’t want to die. Not really. 

 

He knows what his mother would do, if she were him.

She’d shove through the barrier and into the light and the living, dragging him behind her, and then they’d keep running, until they died again. She died again. 

 

The thing is, though, that maybe the Underworld was the most peaceful place Neil’s ever been, tortured souls and gods threatening to kill him aside. 

 

The thing is, though, that Neil doesn’t want to be on the run for the rest of his life, can’t stand the idea of always being in hiding. 

 

Neil is not his mother.

 

He stops playing, his hands still. The last note rings out and the barrier remains open for just a second before it starts to close again, rock rebuilding itself and inching back together. 

 

Neil steels his nerves. 

Turns his head, looks back at his mother, her grey face staring in horror, and then,

 

the cold

  
  


***

 

chrisstefanalexneilnathanialabram

 

***

 

Neil is warm.

 

His back aches like he’s been laying down for too long, but he is warm and it doesn’t hurt when he breathes in, like it has since one of his father’s people broke his ribs. 

 

He is warm and he doesn’t want to open his eyes, but he can feel something pulling at his conscience, trying to wake him up, like his mind is a piece of yarn someone has grabbed hold of and is tugging gently.

 

He opens them a crack, when the pulling gets too intense, and his vision is instantly full of white hair with red tips. 

 

He opens them wider, scrunching up his nose, and the hair retreats. He hears a laugh. 

 

“Am I dead?” he croaks and the hair laughs again. 

“No,” someone says, voice lilting and sweet. 

“Why not?”

“You’ll have to ask him yourself,” the voice says and the hair pulls back completely until Neil gets the impression he’s alone. 

 

He drifts off again.

  
  


***

  
  


Mary Wesninski returns to the Fields of Asphodel.

 

Renee returns to Olympus with spring and promises to visit in six months once more.

 

The flowers disappear from the throne room. 

  
  


***

 

Neil wakes for good and spends days following Andrew around, demanding answers. 

“Why didn’t you kill me like you said you were going to?”

 

The lord of the dead just looks up from his book and stares at him.

(The lord of the dead doesn’t really know himself.)

 

The palace is quieter than ever when the goddess of spring isn’t home.

 

***

 

When Neil is not with Andrew, he sits down next to the river Styx. He makes friends with Thea, the goddess of the night, and they lay on the black sand together. 

 

She tells him of the god that always visits her when he brings messages from Wymack to Andrew.

 

***

 

Neil is not dead. 

He knows this.

 

Neil is not living either.

 

He is in-between and his life was spared despite a deal and he doesn’t quite know why.

 

Andrew spends his day watching the trials of the actual dead. Neil is not permitted to enter the great hall. 

 

Well. Neil doesn’t  _ think _ he is permitted to enter. He doesn’t bother to try. He doesn’t feel like really, truly dying, just for opening a door. (A door that’s twenty feet tall and made of rock and a door that Neil’s not sure he could open anyway.)

 

***

 

Neil likes the garden best. 

He is there when Andrew comes to him for the first time.

He is playing his lyre and he hasn’t in a while and his eyes are closed as he pulls at the strings, making a melody for a song he doesn’t really know.

 

Andrew announces his arrival with a gust of cold. Neil’s noticed that about him— he never enters before letting Neil know he’s coming. 

 

He opens his eyes and looks up at Andrew. The god makes a gesture and when Neil looks confused, he rolls his eyes.

 

“I asked you why you do not just leave.”

“Oh,” Neil says and considers the question. He sets his lyre down and stretches out, running his hands through the blue-grey grass of the garden. He tilts his chin back and looks up at the sky. 

 

(It’s not really much of a sky to look at. It’s really just low hanging thunder clouds that crackle with electricity when they feel like it.)

 

“I don’t want to,” he says finally. And he realizes it’s true. He likes it here, despite the dark and the dead and the sometimes deafening silence of Andrew’s halls. He likes Thea and Charon and, he realizes, he likes Andrew too. Likes his broodiness and comfortable company, even though his  _ company _ should be anything but. He likes it when Andrew comes out to garden and listens to Neil play, lets his eyes fall close as he sways slightly to the music. He likes the miniscule butterfly feeling his gets in his stomach when he sees him, but he’ll never admit that aloud.

 

He glances back at Andrew and the god looks the closest to surprised he’s ever seen him.

“You could, if you did want to,” Andrew says. “I will not keep you here. With that lyre, you have more than enough power to.”

 

“I know,” Neil says and he does. 

 

***

 

Andrew only ever speaks to Neil.

 

Neil asks Thea to teach him to sign.

 

***

 

_ Would you like a pomegranate?  _

Neil has spent weeks learning how to say this, has spent weeks giddily waiting to see Andrew’s face when he asks. The reaction is just as good as he was hoping for.

 

Andrew’s mouth pops open. He swallows. Then he reaches out, fingers reaching for Neil’s. He stops far enough away that Neil has plenty of space to pull back if he wishes. This is another thing Neil has noticed about Andrew— his hyperawareness of space.

 

“Neil,” he says, and his voice cracks a little. “Can I touch your hand. Yes or no.”

Neil grins and the butterfly feeling in his stomach gets bigger. “Yes.”

Andrew’s hand wraps around Neil’s, not once even going past his wrist, and repositions his fingers. Andrew has Neil sign the question again, then walks him through each movement until he’s a little bit more fluid and a little less slow and clunky and the butterflies feel like they’re going to burst out of his chest and spill out into the air, make a swirling hurricane around them.

 

***

 

Andrew opens his eyes and Neil stops playing immediately. Andrew rolls his eyes.

_ I have a proposition. _

_ What is it? _ Neil is still much slower than Andrew, still requires a lot of concentration to follow him when they talk like this.

_ It’s a game. _

Neil’s heart leaps.  _ What kind of game? _

_ Truth for a truth. _

 

***

 

They play, trading secrets back and forth for a millenia and then another, until there is nothing left the other doesn’t know, until the game becomes less trading truths and more  _ I want to tell you this. _

  
  


***

 

Mary Wesninski is sent to the Fields of Punishment after a reconsideration of her case and life.

  
  


***

 

One day, Andrew looks up from his book.  _ You can’t make deals with pipedreams,  _ he tells Neil. 

Neil doesn’t really know what he means, but knows it’s the best answer he’s ever going to get to a question he has long since stopped asking.

 

***

 

Renee visits every winter, brings flowers to add to the ones Neil has started to care for himself in her—their—garden.

 

She smiles at Andrew, big and bright, like she only ever does when she’s proud of him, every time she sees him and Neil stand together, maybe an inch or two closer than needed.

 

***

 

Neil is in the garden when Andrew comes to him, steps up close and lets Neil tuck a rosebud behind his ear and whispers, “yes or no, Neil.”

They are in the garden when Neil whispers back, “yes, always yes.”

 

They are in the garden when Andrew leans in and kisses Neil, warm and cold all at once, and they are in the garden when they find they fit perfectly together.

  
  
  


*** 

 

When Neil finally tries the doors to the great hall, they swing open at his lightest touch.

**Author's Note:**

> hello !! this has been stuck in my head for ages oof. thanks again for reading, comments/kudos are much appreciated i'll love you forever and endlessly.  
> im also thinking of making this a series! ive got some extensive notes on who everyone is in this au and im really excited haha
> 
> \+ you can find me on tumblr over @ minvyards ;)


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